Trump's GOP Takeover, Contextualized: Democracy In Chains by Nancy MacLean

This week we examined “Trump’s GOP Takeover, Contextualized,” reading Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean. Although not on the initial version of the syllabus posted last year, MacLean’s book has been widely discussed over since its publication and I was excited for the opportunity to read it.

MacLean argues that since the 1950s James Buchanan’s libertarian vision of political economy has attracted support from activist billionaires who shared Buchanan’s opposition to high taxes. Baldwin claimed that any efforts to tax Americans must be done by total consensus or else they are a form of tyranny. MacLean astutely argues that such an absolutist definition of economic liberty actually puts itself at odds with democratic principles where the will of the majority (rather than absolute consensus) shapes policy.  Since the public itself would never accept dramatic cuts to popular social welfare programs such as Social Security and Medicare, MacLean argues activist billionaires such as Charles Koch have acted covertly to constrain democratic rule in a variety of ways, undermining social movements and coalitions that hope to use the federal government to foster greater equality (for a copy of my notes, see here). MacLean makes her argument by relying on recently discovered collections of economists’ personal papers, as well the papers of prominent conservative think tanks.

MacLean begins by examining John C. Calhoun’s vision for American political economy in the early nineteenth century. In the earliest years of the country’s history, Americans saw few problems with the federal government and taxation, feeling that majority rule guaranteed their ability to use the money it collected to benefit the largest number of people. However, as northern populations expanded, Calhoun worried that its increasing representative power would curtail southerners’ “economic liberty” and destroy the institution of slavery that provided him with incredible wealth. As a result, Calhoun argued that the federal government and democratic rule itself was a threat to his definition of liberty, an argument libertarian economists have themselves accepted and connected to their own work.

MacLean’s research in the twentieth century focuses primarily on two individuals: James Buchanan and Charles Koch. Buchanan began his career as a student at the University of Chicago, inspired by other well-known laissez faire economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.  Unlike Friedman (whose work focused on mathematical modeling and testable hypotheses), Buchanan had little interest in mathematics and instead focused on ideology. Buchanan began his professional career at the University of Virginia in the mid-1950s, the same moment the federal government began to force southern schools to desegregate. Buchanan applied his ideas to these public debates and argued the federal government did not have the moral right to force states to change their education policy and that all schools should be privatized. Buchanan’s disciples found influential positions within Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign in 1964, but whenever Goldwater openly discussed his plans to dismantle popular social programs and curtail federal protection for African Americans he lost the support of labor unions, farmers, elderly Americans, and civil rights workers that believed the federal government should play an active role in American life – essentially coming up against the realities of democratic governance.  While many other politicians accepted coalition politics and the need to court various constituencies hoping to use federal power for the public good, Buchanan remained stubborn, insisting that he was a champion of freedom for all to decide their fate. However, MacLean highlights hypocritical elements of Buchanan’s philosophy, noting that he never accepted people might actually oppose his vision and that Buchanan ultimately concluded democracy itself was a danger to economic liberty.

Buchanan’s professional career experienced ups and downs over the course of several decades.  His disinterest in mathematical economics meant most of his work consisted of thought experiments based on perfect marketplaces that social scientists and journalists since the Gilded Age demonstrated did not exist. His indifference to math also made it difficult for his students to find jobs, and he moved his program across the country several times before ultimately ending up at George Mason University in the 1980s. Supported by donations from businessmen and close to Washington, DC, Buchanan’s agenda found increasing support in the nation’s capital over the final decades of the twentieth century.

One of Buchanan’s largest backers was businessman Charles Koch.  Koch’s father had operated an oil business that was repeatedly sued by the very powerful successors of Standard Oil for patent infringement and regularly lost in court, but investigators eventually determined his powerful adversary was actively corrupting the judicial process. Koch conceptualized this corruption not as criminal action, but rather as “rent-seeking behavior,” and studied libertarian economic theory on his own.  Like many other businessmen in the late twentieth century, Koch was interested in the idea that government had no right to force constraints on individuals’ supposed economic freedom. Koch drew inspiration from libertarian activists borrowing tactics from Vladimir Lenin’s revolution in Russia, feeling that a small number of individuals could radically reshape American society. A wildly successful businessman, Koch bankrolled libertarian think tanks such as the Cato Institute and (like Buchanan) refused to compromise his vision and drew a line in the sand between his ideas and the conservative movement of the era. Capitalizing on the public’s eroding confidence in federal government and existing ideas of political economy due to Vietnam, Watergate, and economic downturn during the 1970s, the public turned to new ideas espoused by Ronald Reagan.  Despite Reagan’s lofty promises, political realities stymied efforts during the 1980s to eliminate Social Security, and Koch continued to support libertarian efforts to dismantle popular New Deal era programs. By the early twenty-first century, Koch and Buchanan’s libertarian vision had usurped other elements of the Republican coalition, first at the state level and then at the national level. Billionaires including Koch became the party’s driving force, financing politicians that would vote to privatize public infrastructure, oppose unionization, and reshape the judiciary to actually enhance federal power to overturn democratically supported laws that hindered the business activity in defense of public interests.  MacLean argues that the African American community has been hardest hit by these policies, a point Carol Anderson made as well when she highlighted recent GOP efforts to curtail African Americans’ voting rights.

Interestingly, MacLean’s introduction touches on Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric opposing free trade deals and (likely writing before he assumed office) contrasts his pledges with Koch’s vision for the GOP.  However, since taking office, the Trump Administration has often conformed to the model MacLean outlined in the book. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been a supporter of privatized education for years, which MacLean outlined as a founding principle of libertarian political economy. The recent Republican tax plan was heavily modeled on similar (albeit failed) state-level initiatives supported by billionaire activists, specifically policies in Koch's home state of Kansas. As the tax bill heads towards passage, it seems likely the Republican party will attempt to cut Social Security and Medicare or other popular parts of the social safety net, programs libertarians have long wanted to eliminate. Although problematic, unqualified judges appointed by Trump would likely have to rule on their legitimacy.

As MacLean argued, secrecy and corrosion have been tools Trump used repeatedly over the past few months. Trump’s has appointed a small number of advisors deliberately to speed potential destruction to of federal social services. His advisors include Steve Bannon who (like Koch) admittedly embraces tactics inspired by Lenin, as well as Mick Mulvaney who opposes virtually all spending initiatives (to head multiple government agencies, a likely impossible task), and also has declined to fill many key positions further slowing federal action. Secrecy also marked the recent tax bill, which advanced rapidly through Congress with extremely limited debate and little opportunity for Senators to even read the bill’s final version. Even though these realities may seem bleak, MacLean’s work makes it clear that strong social movements remain the core of opposition to such policies – these are in fact what libertarian activists seek to undermine.  While the Trump Administration seems bent on constraining democratic politics in favor of economic profits for the wealthiest Americans, individuals must still work together and form coalitions to preserve democratic governance.